PCE Frames Up For New Scottish Museum

The innovative design the new museum at Kittochside, East Kilbride, features a combination of old and new with its precast concrete frame and roof cloaked in traditional materials to provide the essentially rural atmosphere required. The Museum is the result of a partnership between the National Trust for Scotland and National Museums of Scotland. It has been made possible by the gift of West Kittochside Farm to the Trust by Mrs MSC Reid in 1992. This gift, which included the contents of the farmhouse and steading, reflects the history and ownership of the land by ten generations of the Reid family since the 16th century. Additional land was acquired from South Lanarkshire Council in 1997 for a new purposebuilt exhibition centre. The farm will continue to be worked using the techniques and equipment of the 1950s. The project will create a group of three-storey buildings around a courtyard display area. The finished buildings, due to open to the public in mid-2001, will be in the style of traditional Scottish rurla buildings with pitched slate roofs featuring lead ridges, white rendered and roughsawn timber walls and handmade facing bricks. Internally the buildings will feature specially finished precast concrete frames and floors. PCE was awardedthe contract to erect more than 1,600 precast components by C.V.Buchan Ltd, supplier to the main contractor Kvaerner Construction. Precast units were manufactured principally at C.V.Buchans facilities in Northwich, Cheshire and Accrington, Lancashire for daily delivery to a timed erection programme.

The frame echoes the design of rural Scottish barns

Concrete Quarterly Winter 2000-2001 Issue 197

http://www.concretequarterly.com

The design features three precast concrete cores two housing steel staircases with precast treads and one accommodating the kitchen and no less than four different types of precast concrete floor units at different levels. There is also an internal 17m bridge and pedestrian ramp between levels 2 and 3, comprising a single span unit weighing approximately 26 tonnes. Externally a 28m high chimney has been constructed from 12 triangular units each weighing around 10 tonnes. The frames design was complicated by the large open areas at second floor level, the need to provide stability to the roofs at eaves level, columns changing in cross section from one floor level to the next and the need to provide support for the various brick and blockwork walls. To a large extent the solution was the use of multispan floor beams, up to 30m in length, with scarfed joints at mid-span at all levels including the roof. The exposed finished concrete framework was a deliberate feature of the design. As a result considerable attention was paid to the quality and finish of the precast concrete units for the core walls, columns and beams. All the precast concrete that remain visible is untreated, striaght from the mould finish that has had no subsequent finishing. The new museum, while celebrating the past, is a testimony to modern concrete frame construction. Project team Client: National Trust for Scotland Architect: Page & Park Engineer: Will Rudd Associates Main contractor: Kvaerner Copnstruction Lid, now Skanska UK Building Precast frame design and supply:C V Buchan Limited Precast erector: PCE Limited

Traditional materials are used to complement the concrete

Concrete Quarterly Winter 2000-2001 Issue 197

http://www.concretequarterly.com

The 28m chimney is constructed from 12 triangular units

The exposed concrete has a quality finish

Concrete Quarterly Winter 2000-2001 Issue 197

http://www.concretequarterly.com